The meta-competence of working in teams is not just required in workplaces. Fundamentally, it is about how the individual finds their place in the group – any kind of group – and how they can contribute to its flourishing. As humans, we are social beings, working in teams teaches us how to be our best selves. It is therefore difficult to break down this competence in its constituencies. There are a lot of candidates. Communication Skills, collaboration, adaptability, flexibility, emotional intelligence, trustworthiness and reliability, leadership skills, organisational and team management skills, cultural intelligence and diversity awareness, conflict management are just some of the available options.  

There is hardly any job interview where at some point the candidate does not face the question: “Are you a good team player?” The answer is usually an enthusiastic “Yes!”, but it takes more to convince our future employers that we will function well in their team. The first step is to show them that we understand what they speak about. Indeed, what does it mean to be a good team player?

Competence is a combination of knowledge, skills and attitudes, so the question can be translated in this way: what should somebody know, what things should they be good at and what should be their general disposition to help a group develop? In this case, the attitude may come first.

Selfishness runs against teamwork. The collective must be seen as a value, for which some amount of sacrifice is worth. At the same time, without individual responsibility and the will to do ones’ very best the positive effect of affective involvement in the group may be lost.  Here comes the importance of skills. Any group is an abstraction to some extent. Concretely, the group manifests in interactions. Communication is the key! It is great if we can communicate clearly, but at the same time we should learn how to pay attention to the other as a person, not just as the recipient of the message. Cooperation is doing with. Doing with means sometimes to make compromises, to let some of our best ideas go if they do not seem the best idea to anybody else.

Cooperation means to be able to adapt, to listen, to lead or to give in – depending on the case.  Cooperation means also to accept that diversity is the natural context to any kind of team, and it is better to embrace it than to work against it. 

Formal knowledge is less important for working well in teams than skills and attitudes but there are certain things that are useful to know, and which can be learned. It is because what you think about group culture (culture in general), group identity, diversity, leadership or communication may affect the way you evaluate events and facts, and how you act in certain situations. Humans are meaning-making creatures and as we go through our days, we do not stop creating naïve theories to give explanations to our experiences. The advantage that we have on animals is that we can rely on the knowledge of those that have been there before us. That is why it is a good idea to learn about existing theories of team work to confront with them our naïve theories.